Save the Date for FAME’s 2019 Annual Event!

Regional Apprenticeships – A School to Career Connection

Featuring Mr. Brent Parton, Deputy Director of the Center on Education & Skills with the Education Policy program at New America

April 30, 2019

Monroe Community College

R. Thomas Flynn Campus Center

Monroe A & B

The Finger Lakes Advanced Manufacturers’ Enterprise is pleased to present our 2019 annual event Keynote, Mr. Brent Parton from the Center on Education & Skills with the Education Policy program at New America! The Center is dedicated to building learning-based pathways to economic opportunity that can begin inside or outside of formal higher education. His work focuses on federal and state policies to scale those pathways, and ensure their quality and relevance within an evolving economy.

Parton is leading New America’s Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA). PAYA is a multi-year initiative that will support efforts in states and cities to expand access to high-quality apprenticeship opportunities for high school age youth by:

Improving public awareness of high-quality youth apprenticeship programs and advancing understanding of how well such programs serve students, employers, and communities.

Disseminating better information about the conditions and strategies necessary for success and sustainability of youth apprenticeship partnerships.

Prior to New America, Parton served as a senior policy advisor at the U.S. Department of Labor. There he advised leadership on a range of skills issues including the expansion of apprenticeship, the design of investments in regional industry-workforce partnerships, and enhancing federal interagency coordination on skills initiatives. Before joining the Department, Parton worked at the National Governors Association where he led the development of a new portfolio focused on supporting state strategies to expand high-quality work based learning, and provided technical assistance to state leaders to align workforce, post-secondary education, and economic development policy and strategy.

Parton has also worked in the education sector of the World Bank, co-authoring a book on entrepreneurship education and training, and supporting policy dialogue related to skills and youth employment. Parton has a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in international education policy, both from Vanderbilt University, where he is also an adjunct professor.